iWorld
Fastest scale-up in insurance distribution: PhonePe sells 5 lakh policies in just 5 months
PhonePe, India’s leading digital payments platform, today announced that it has sold over 5 lakh insurance policies on its platform during the period April – August 2020. This makes PhonePe the fastest-growing insure-tech distributor in India within just 9 months of the Insurance category going live on the PhonePe app.
PhonePe forayed into the insurance segment in January this year and was the first digital payment platform to launch international travel insurance for business & leisure travellers. Since April, it has launched 5 more insurance products which include COVID-19 Insurance, Domestic Travel Insurance, Hospital Daily Cash, Dengue & Malaria Insurance, Personal Accident Cover in addition to International Travel Insurance.
The short span of time within which these products were launched is significant considering the industry usually takes a few months to develop and launch similar products. What is also noteworthy is that PhonePe has timed its products based on market needs and has also partnered with leading insurers to offer customized products for its vast registered user base exceeding 23 crores. PhonePe launched a few cost-effective insurance products for COVID-19 in April & May when the pandemic was seeing a rapid spread across the country. With the lockdown ending and domestic travel gradually starting across the country in June, the company launched a comprehensive, industry-first domestic multi-trip insurance cover at just INR 499 for all domestic trips for a year. PhonePe soon launched sachet-based insurance products in July beginning with Hospital Daily Cash to enable customers to get an assured amount if they are hospitalized due to injury or illnesses including COVID-19. Keeping the upcoming rainy season in mind which sees a huge number of cases of mosquito-borne diseases across the country, it launched Dengue & Malaria Insurance in July.
The PhonePe app has seen insurance purchases from over 15,000 pin codes covering tier-1, 2, 3 and beyond reflecting the deep penetration of its platform and tremendous customer response to its offerings. Over 70% of PhonePe’s users come from tier- 2 and 3 cities with many users buying insurance for the first time. The leading tier-2 and tier-3 cities for insurance sales on PhonePe are Visakhapatnam, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Nashik, Vijayawada and Aurangabad.
Commenting on the milestone, Hemant Gala, VP Financial Services & Payments, PhonePe said, “We are delighted to have achieved the 5 lakh insurance policies sold milestone on PhonePe within a short span of 5 months. This is by far the fastest scale-up seen in the insurtech industry. We are thankful to our partners who have worked closely with us to innovate and co-create affordable products for our customers to cater to their specific needs. Customers continue to repose their trust in PhonePe as they find buying insurance on our platform affordable, simple to understand and easy. This is in line with our goal to be a one-stop destination for all insurance needs of our customers. We are in talks with multiple insurers and have many new products in the pipeline which will be launched in the coming months.”
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
